What determines the choice of countries' trade partners? We show theoretically and empirically that financial market imperfections affect the number and identity of exporters' destinations. Bigger economies with lower trade costs are more attractive markets because they offer higher export...

We study the collapse of international trade flows during the global financial crisis using detailed data on monthly US imports. We show that credit conditions were an important channel through which the crisis affected trade volumes, by exploiting the variation in the cost of capital across...

This paper provides firm-level evidence that credit constraints restrict international trade flows and affect the sectoral pattern of multinational activity. Using detailed customs data from China, we show that foreign affiliates and joint ventures have better export performance than private...

Global value chains (GVCs) allow firms to produce and export final goods, or to perform only intermediate stages of production by processing imported inputs for re-exporting. We examine how financial constraints determine companies' position in GVCs and how this position affects profitability....

An emerging new literature brings unique ideas from corporate finance to the study of international trade and investment. Insights about differences in the development of financial institutions across countries, the role of financial constraints, and the use of internal capital markets are...

This paper measures whether trade linkages are important determinants of a country's vulnerability to crises that originate elsewhere in the world. It explains that trade can transmit crises internationally via three distinct, and possible counteracting, channels: a competitiveness effect (when...

We provide evidence that host-country financial development affects the global operations of multinational firms. Financially advanced economies attract more affiliates of U.S. multinationals. Financially developed host countries also feature higher aggregate affiliate sales to the local market,...

This paper applies a logistic smooth transition regression approach to the estimation of a homogenous aggregate value added production function of the State Owned (SOE) and Foreign-Funded Enterprises (FFE) in China, 1980s-2007. The transition associated with the economic reforms in China is...

We argue that the welfare gains from trade in new models with micro-level margins exceed those in frameworks without these margins. Theoretically, we show that for fixed trade elasticity, different models predict identical trade flows, but different patterns of micro-level price variation. Thus,...

This paper proposes that quality differentiation is an important feature of the operations of multi-product firms. We develop a model in which manufacturers vary product quality across their product range by using inputs of different quality levels. Firms' core competency is in varieties of...